On Monday morning, the singer Seal passed away.
Not really. But if you were watching WGRZ during the 11 p.m. news, you might have thought so.
Buffalo's NBC affiliate reported on the death of Michael Clarke Duncan, a celebrated actor best known for his roles in The Green Mile and Talladega Nights, and accidentally ran photos of the very much alive "Kiss from a Rose" singer.
The station apologized the following morning, but by midnight, the blunder was receiving national attention.
It happens. Too much, in fact.
Media error has become almost a natural part of the journalism process, and not just by small city organizations. Remember premature reports on the Affordable Care Act this summer? NBC News certainly does. The same network reported just last week that astronaut Neil YOUNG had passed away.
And ABC got heat over the summer after it made claims that Aurora shooter James Holmes might have been a member of a local Tea Party organization, a failed attempt to politicize the issue.
There's an inevitable fact that news is about breaking the story before anyone else can get to it. Every now and then, a news organization is in such a rush to get a story out or get an issue to press that errors slip through the cracks. That "every now and then" is becoming a once-a-week deal.
One of the most humbling moments as a journalist comes when your mistake hits the air or ends up in print. You don't have to deal with just a few people seeing it and telling you it needs to be fixed; you have to face the embarrassment of seeing it in front of you, knowing thousands of people are seeing it. And then you have to face the aftermath - the emails, the phone calls, the assumptions.
Every news organization is going to make mistakes, but the consequence of that is dealing with the public reaction. WGRZ and ABC in New York (which also reported the story with a picture of the wrong man - in its case, it was Terry Crews) might have noticed accusations of racism after confusing their pictures. Mistakes in the past have triggered claims of political bias, hidden agendas and simply misleading the public.
God knows we at The Spectrum are not perfect. Last year we published a picture of UB President Satish Tripathi out at Starbucks with his alleged sons; the "sons" pictured were students. And there are still editors around the office who are haunted by a gaffe of publishing the San Diego State logo instead of the South Dakota State logo.
The responsibility lies with every single one of us in the media to not only report the story first but to report it right, whether we're behind or in front of the camera, asking the questions or editing the articles.
While journalistic errors are never commendable, in the face of the instant gratification culture that media is evolving into it's easy to see how certain mistakes are inevitable.
To WGRZ, we have your back. To its audience (or any other organization's audiences, including our own), your response means you were doing your job properly when we were not. No one can complain about that.
Email: editorial@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
